Rephlex, 2007
Dopplereffekt refuse interviews and rarely perform live. They originally hail from Detroit, and their music has a spacey eighties feel. That doesn’t make it any less magical. Earlier this year Clone Classic Cuts re-issued Gesamtkunstwerk, a collection of the duo’s early nineties electro.
Calabi-Yau Space is their first album in four years. “Hyperelliptic Surfaces” is the major work here, extending over twelve minutes and spanning a wide range of styles. The first movement is eerie with theremin and ambient chords. The second is even more beautiful with that distinctive Detroit synth sound and slow bleep arpeggios. Everything breaks down with panning, distorted noises for the final third. “Compactification” is short and sweet, with distorted high pitches which twist between the speakers. “Mirror Symmetry” sounds like a gamelan. On “Non Vanishing Harmonic Spinor,” ethereal voices emerge. When a bassline kicks in, it’s quite heavenly. This is atmospheric music that takes some patience, but when you’re in the right mood, it’s transcendent. It certainly sounds like no other album.
